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More coverage of Hurricane Ike's Passage Through Texas
Aired September 13, 2008 - 11:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MAYOR BILL WHITE, HOUSTON: The rule of thumb should be that if you're in a municipality that relies on Houston for its water, that includes the city of Houston, please use bottled water and as a precaution, the public health authorities are asking that you boil water for a minute. This is important. If you do have bottled water and you have neighbors, and there was some contamination of the water supply, then public health professionals tell us that those most vulnerable are seniors and infants. So, I would ask those people who have obtained some bottled water or safe water supply to please share it with your neighbors. Remember, there are some people who may not be able to boil water because of the situation with electricity. The question was whether it would be safe for individuals to go out into their own yards to assess their property damage. I saw many citizens doing just that and those citizens were not in harm's way. The police chief has been driving the streets of Clear Lake, for example. It appears as though we have avoided what was the worst in that particular area, but please keep out of those streets. This is no time to play in the ditches.
Well, as (INAUDIBLE) referred to, there is a coordinated plan. I know we were working on it throughout yesterday, for both the surveillance by the heavy duty vehicles, such as the public works vehicles, the fire trucks, the solid waste vehicles to give land based reconnaissance concerning what the damage is and then we will have, just as soon as the wind conditions allow, some aerial support. By the end of the day, we will have a fuller assessment of the damage. Obviously, I can just tell you, and I'm going back out as soon as I leave this news conference, that there are a number of trees that are down. There are a number of fences that have blown away. There are carports that have blown away, et cetera.
[ Inaudible question ]
WHITE: Yes, if I could. We have no evidence so far that the water supply is contaminated. We have no evidence of the water supply being contaminated. What we do know is that the pressure in the water system has reached a level that is too low. One of the risks of having a low pressure in the water system is the possibility there could be intrusion of water from outside that water system. So that is what we're assessing, how quickly we can bring back that pressure in the water system. Now, individuals can help yourself and help each other by conserving the use of water. The more water we use, that reduces the pressure within the water system. There is a particular plant where the pump is down on the plant going into the water system. We have three large water plants. Those three large water plants, at least two of the three, including the essential east plant, do have a source of live power going into the plant. There is a pumping station, pumping well water into the east plant that right now, as of about 90 minutes ago, the pumps were down in Center Point and the city of Houston and FEMA are going to make the highest priority to get that back up and on line.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mayor, speaking of pumps, there has been some flooding in 59, I-10, traditional places that flood whenever we get a lot of rain here in Houston, Harris County. Because of the major power failure we are experiencing, do you know if those pumps are actually working to pump water out or is that something that is not working because of the lack of power we have right now?
WHITE: We have some automatic pumps. I imagine some of those pumps may be on the grid. We do also have pumps that are on diesel fire power and I don't have an inventory of which pumps are or are not working. With that, we will take one question and we are going to have to go. Go ahead.
[ Inaudible question ]
WHITE: I can give you an assessment of the emergency response professionals for two entities or jurisdictions and then I wouldn't want to, you know, guess, concerning the others. With the city of Houston, we have some 4,000 people in the Houston fire department. Those vehicles, they are prepared, they have been preparing, they have been prioritizing station by station for debris removal, emergency response, emergency rescue.
HOLMES: We have been listening in to Mayor White there of Houston giving a press conference flanked by some other officials including we see Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, who represents Houston's 18th district which includes Houston. But they are talking about a lot of emphasis put there on the water supply, concern about it possibly being contaminated. He told people to take some precautions, however, he said there is no evidence that the water supply is contaminated. Those were his words precisely. No evidence of it. However, he talked about some technical stuff going on there with them. The way he put it was that the water pressure is a little low and one reason it could be low is that there could be some intrusion into that water supply. Still, no evidence that the water supply has been contaminated. Welcome back here, it's five minutes after 11, mid morning there, 10:05 in Texas right now, specifically in Houston, where we have been watching hurricane Ike this morning. We are getting a look now at some more of this damage and just how bad it is from this hurricane because we have some daylight hours now. We are taking more of an assessment now. We can see things.
It roared across as a category 2 storm. This happened now some 8 hours ago just about. It has happened in Galveston, it's now been downgraded to a category 1 storm. The center is now northeast of Conroe, Texas. This is some 60 miles plus north of Houston. Thousands of homes are flooded. There are millions without power. The storm surge was half of what was predicted. Now that sounds great but still it's causing all kinds of issues. Rescue teams in some areas are starting to venture out. They'll answer some of those calls for help. Others who got out ahead of the storm are staying in evacuation centers as far away as San Antonio, about 200 miles away, that is from Houston. Also reports unfortunately that three people have been killed and that has been attributed to this particular storm. We are going to head down to Houston and my co-anchor, Betty Nguyen, my partner, who has been there telling us about the scene there. Betty, something that just struck me in this particular, if you were able to listen to him, he talked about, they are working through a back log of 4,700 911 calls there in and around the Houston area. And I know you were talking about you can't see many people out, but what you are seeing is a lot of emergency vehicles, a lot of police officials running around.
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah, that number has definitely increased because earlier this morning, we were getting reports that it was 1,200. A lot of folks obviously tried to ride out this storm and had some issues with that and they were calling in for some backup there. I want to talk to you about the debris here in downtown Houston because T.J. that's been the main concern in this area, not so much the flooding or the rain but the flying debris. You have a lot of high-rise buildings and a lot of windows. When this hurricane blew through overnight, hurricane Ike came with a powerful punch. Take a look at this. Right here is a traffic signal. This thing is quite big. Look at it in comparison to me. It's pretty heavy too. This was blown off of the post right there at Congress Street. If you take a look down that street, you can see how trees have just literally been blown back and forth and all along it. Then, look up at that tall building. That right there is the JP Morgan Chase building. If I can get my photographer to zoom in, Joe if you can zoom in really closely on some of those windows, we are being told that about 50 percent of the windows from the 30th floor on down on this particular east side right here have been blown out. You can even see some of the curtains still flying in the wind.
Now, back to your street level, though, debris is all around. We have seen core gated steel, we've seen street signs. We've seen as I've showed you, a traffic light. But behind you Joe, be careful, this is what people are dealing with. These tree limbs that have been picked up and blown all across downtown Houston. Just a little bit down the way, my colleague, Jeanne Meserve, if you will look closely at all that water that is the Buffalo Bayou. I wanted to take it over to Jeanne right now because she is down there assessing the situation. Jeanne, what are you seeing?
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A lot of water, Betty. If you look behind me, you can see a storm drain that is just gushing water up into the street. If you look beyond it, you can see some trees clearly probably 10 feet of flooding down there. The water level comes up almost to the lowest branches in those trees. The water is coming up out of these storm drains and it is flowing on down Commerce Street here in downtown Houston. If you look in this direction you see the consequences. You see this road is absolutely impassable. We have seen a couple of vehicles try and go over bridges here towards the University of Houston downtown. The building itself, appears to be protected. From this vantage point, it looks that way, anyway, by a wall that's been built along the bayou. When drivers have tried to go over, they have turned around and come back. They say the water on that side is just too deep, it's absolutely impassable. In this area here between roads, you might be able to make out churning water. It looks like water is just absolutely trapped in there and going around and around and around. It looks very powerful and very unpleasant. We have a few sightseers out here. We've seen the energy company but as yet this is a situation that is clearly developing. The water I must say although it continues to gush up, hasn't risen that much in the half hour or so we have been down here. Betty?
NGUYEN: That is definitely good news but the water is swift down there at the Buffalo Bayou. But back here on Travis Street in downtown Houston, not only are folks trying to meander through the debris in the streets but people are really trying to get assessment of the damage here. We see a lot of shop owners out and about. In fact though, we have seen more authorities out here like police vehicles. We even saw a s.w.a.t. team truck drive by. In fact I think that was the third one of the morning that I have seen. Authorities out here, T.J., are making sure that, one, that the damage is to the side of the roadway so that people can get in and kind of see what was left of their residences, of not only their homes but their businesses but the same time, they also want to make sure that people don't come out here and try to loot many of these businesses that have been damaged in this storm. I want to talk to Jacqui Jeras now because Jacqui as you can see, it's still raining here but the winds aren't nearly as strong as they were earlier. About how far away from Houston is Ike at this moment?
JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Oh boy, probably a good 70 miles probably already. This storm has really picked up forward speed so it is booking out of there. That's great news because the hurricane force winds came out earlier than expected. Although you know it's still possible you are going to get some of these tropical storm force wind gusts. Here is the center of the storm. It's getting real close to Lumpkin, Texas right now. And you know most of the action here on the eastern quadrant of the storm. So that's good news because it's really the thunderstorms associated with this now that are going to be producing the winds around 60 or more miles an hour. We are still getting reports like that around the Beaumont, Port Arthur area as these lines continue to roll on in. You know we think the worst is over with in the Houston area. We are watching this move up towards Trinity, up towards Lumpkin and it's turning northward now. We were moving northwest and now we're pulling north and eventually we are going to take that track on up toward the north into the east. Something else we are going to be watching, are those cities farther to the north. Dallas is going to be getting in close on these tropical storm force winds especially if you live on the east side of town. You are going to be more susceptible to starting to see that. We can see those bands extending all the way up into parts of Oklahoma, also into parts of Arkansas.
Now, here are some complications that we are going to have down the line. Today's immediate impact continues to be the surge that still is moving onshore as we speak. The wind issues, flooding is going to be a major concern as we head through the rest of the weekend. We saw Jeanne Meserve with the conditions in the bayou. Unfortunately, the rainfall, 8 to 10 inches has been reported from Houston down towards Galveston. Add several inches on top of that. Tornadoes will be a problem in the Arka-Tex region today up towards the middle Mississippi River valley and Ohio River valley. Tomorrow, it is hooking up with a cold front. We think they could potentially merge together and bring tremendous rainfall. This area is already saturated. We have had flooding all in here over the last couple of days. You add in a little bit of Ike and then we are talking about some big-time issues with that. We're going to talk more about that flood threat and show you some gauges of where that water is starting to rise in some area rivers coming up when I see you again. Betty?
NGUYEN: That was a major concern as we began to look at Ike and how big of a storm it was and what kind of damage it could possibly cause. Thank you for that, Jacqui. Speaking of this storm, it was quite massive and it affected many portions of Texas, especially here in the southern region. I want to show you something that was filed from my colleague, Rusty Dornin, just a short time ago. She is in Beaumont. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): We are still feeling the effects. You can hear the winds howling through this eight-story building during the night, shaking the entire building. And you can see the ninth floor apparently, actually all of this is insulation, the winds tore off part of the ninth floor of the building I'm in and it is scattered all over the parking lot. It has also torn down the sign. There are trees down, power lines down. They are just getting into some of these neighborhoods to find the damage. Of course there are major power outages. But the big thing is, they don't think that there is extensive flooding through Port Arthur and through Beaumont. That that sea wall did hold at 14 feet. Apparently, the water only came up to 13 feet. Of course that was a big fear. However, about 20 miles from here, up the Sabine River, Orange, Texas, we are getting reports from the National Weather Service that there are people up on roofs, that there is flooding there that need to be rescued. Also, we understand that in Port Natchez, there was a fire last night, some people had to be rescued. And also in Bridge City, there is nine feet of water in the downtown area. That apparently is from the Natchez River. This surge from the gulf came up and is flooding many of these towns up the rivers. The big fear about Port Arthur did not come true. Of course, it remains to be seen mega refineries are in this area. We have no idea what kind of damage was done. I did talk to one of the oil officials yesterday from Shell who said that they filled tankers with oil late last night in order to make sure that they were ready to go once the power is back up. They will be ready to resupply gas stations in this area. Right now, we are in a town where there are national guards and troopers. They are just getting organized to try to get out and assess the situation.
(END OF VIDEOTAPE)
NGUYEN: Rusty Dornin, filing that report just a short time ago, to give us a little look at what could be long-reaching effects of hurricane Ike. Right now, we are giving you a live shot of downtown Houston, particularly down by the Buffalo Bayou. You can see that big black truck that's right there. That's the Houston s.w.a.t. truck. They are blocking off that road because a lot of people have been traveling down there not only trying to get a glimpse of how this bayou has flooded its bank. But it's causing some problems cause some vehicles are actually trying to cross that flooded road. And as you know, when vehicles try to cross a flooded road and you have no idea how deep that water is, often times, they get swept away and it could be a really dangerous situation. I want to take you now to one of our producers who, in fact, is headed to Galveston, an area that was hit extremely hard by hurricane Ike. Sara Weisfeldt is on the phone on the road as well. Sara, what are you seeing?
VOICE OF SARA WEISFELDT, CNN PRODUCER: Hi Betty, right now, we are sort of in the middle of an area where there is flooding in front of us and there is a bit of flooding behind us. The flooding behind us wasn't too deep so we drove through it. We were on our way from the emergency operations center for Galveston County where we hunkered down during the storm to head over to Kemah and Seabrook, some little coastal towns. We wanted to check out how those towns fared the storm and then we were going to head over to Galveston Island. Right now we see a lot of flooded roads. There is a curfew in effect but there are a lot of residents we have seen, probably 15 residents, kind of wondering around and wading through the flooded waters. That's pretty much it.
NGUYEN: So you are seeing some flooding there. Are you seeing a lot of damage when it comes to buildings or debris or anything like that?
WEISFELDT: Well, we've seen some gas stations that have sort of been ripped apart. We have seen a lot of downed trees. We have not seen many power lines down yet. Signs that are clearly submerged in the water. But no, we haven't made it -- what we are told is that the areas of Seabrook and Kemah, if we are able to make it there, that there may be some deaths there, which is part of what we are interested in finding out.
NGUYEN: No doubt. A lot of concern was really focused down on those areas in and around Galveston. Especially as Ike came ashore as a category 2. The storm surge has been what a lot of people were concerned about. We'll see how many people were able to ride it out and survive this storm. Sara, we do appreciate that. Stay tuned. We have much more coverage on hurricane Ike right here on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: We have a hurricane on our hands this morning. There it is, Ike. Here is the latest. It came ashore as a category 2 storm around 2:10 local time there in Texas, specifically Galveston. It is now a category 1 hurricane. Top winds right now about 80 miles an hour and that is still no joke. So far, three deaths attributed to this storm. Thousands of homes and businesses have been destroyed in Texas as well as Louisiana. The center of the storm has moved north of Houston, 60 plus miles now. But it's making its way on out of there. It's expected to move through southeastern and eastern Texas today and move into western Arkansas tonight. Speaking of Arkansas, people there, people in South Carolina, people in Tennessee, people in Georgia, all over the southeast, look at that, $5.23 a gallon for gas. Well, that is an effect of this storm. Even though you might not be getting hit by some wind and rain from the storm, it is still hitting you in the pocket book. Long lines, prices way up. In some cases, the increases are happening within just 15, 30 minutes of the last price increase. Listen to what these drivers in Atlanta are going through.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We noticed on TV that the gas prices are going up quickly as they are going up on the sign as I'm sitting here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't even know what it says there, is he changing it? He looks like he is changing the gas now, oh man.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because when I pulled in the sign was saying the gas was $3.69 and right now I think it's four and a half dollars.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: That's just terrible. You are looking at it go up Josh. You are sitting in line and it is going up on you.
JOSH LEVS: Literally seeing the price go up.
HOLMES: I know you're keeping an eye on this thing. We have been talking about it all morning now. You have more answers for us about what's happening? What's going on out there now?
LEVS: I do. We are also getting what I suspected. More and more people in different parts of the country saying it is true for them. Let's just quickly zoom in on the board. You can see some of the i-Reports and what people are writing us about gas prices in their areas, Pensacola, Florida, some places are out of gas. Some people are convinced that they re being gouged. They may not be being gouged but they are seeing a tremendous jump in prices. Some people are saying 50, 60, 75 cent jump from yesterday. And like you heard there, some people physically seeing it happen. Why, let's go to this Google earth animation we have which is going to trace you through some of the key oil installations that are over there. These are oil refineries that are all part of Texas. They have 26 in that area. We were already reporting yesterday that 13 of them are shut down. Part of what we're seeing is this whole idea of supply, demand, economics. But as we've been hearing throughout this morning, it's also a little bit more complicated than that. A lot of the analysts believe that people are panicking out there. Going to the gas stations to get all the gas and then the gas stations are running out. A lot of the stations are also going to have a harder time getting it from their suppliers at these refineries. So they are turning up the price as well in order to make up for that they need to. So there is a whole system here. We're tracing it throughout the day. We are going to have more answers for you later today and tomorrow morning and then, if you think that isn't enough. We also have natural gas to think about. This is going to impact the entire energy market.
Let me go in on something here. This right here on this screen is going to show you natural gas pipelines in Texas. This is from the Energy Information Administration. This blue is interstate, the gray is intrastate. The gray is inside Texas. The blue is part of Texas, also goes elsewhere. These are just the ones inside Texas in red now. Texas has more intrastate natural gas pipeline miles than any other state. All of that is natural gas pipeline inside Texas. We already know a bunch of it in this section where you see it is really conglomerated there, is impacted. Which means the price of natural gas, which is what you might use to heat your home, could also be impacted and this could last quite a while depending on what happens with these pipelines. T.J., we are going to keep our eye on both of these. In the meantime, we encourage i-Reporters all over the country, who are helping us do our journalism today. If you see a big spike in prices at your local gas stations, send us your i-Reports and your stories. We are going to call, we're going to check it out and then we're going to add it to the board. We are making a national mosaic here to see how far our i-Reporters are telling us T.J. that these hikes are really spreading.
HOLMES: Yes, we depend on those i-Reporters. We certainly appreciate them at times like this but we can't pay them, sorry. We appreciate you Josh.
LEVS: But you get your name on TV sometimes.
HOLMES: That works sometimes. Another name we have been seeing all over TV today and a face we have been seeing down in Houston, our Betty Nguyen, who has been down there. What a difference a few hours makes. You have been through it down there pretty much today, a lot different scene.
NGUYEN: I'm telling you, we go from 115 to 130 miles an hour wind, rain coming sideways in sheets, to this, which isn't so bad. I mean it's still raining, the wind is still blowing but not nearly like it was. But let me tell you, the folks here in Houston, many of them decided to heed those warnings. They stayed inside, they got away from those windows in those high-rise buildings. That's something that really is probably going to make a big difference when we assess all the damage. But we want to find out what the situation is like in Orange County, Texas. We have Judge Thibodeaux on the line with us. Just let me ask you this, I understand some people are in the process right now of trying to be rescued. What do you know?
VOICE OF JUDGE CARL THIBODEAUX, ORANGE COUNTY, TEXAS: Well you know of course, we have devastation all over. We have people that are trapped on the roofs of their home. One family has been there since 3:00 this morning. We have them trapped in their attics on the south end of our county. We have wind devastation on the west end of our county and water damage there also. We are trying to help those that are -- in other words, the major emergencies. We are trying to get rescuers out to pick those people up in large dump trucks and things of this nature.
NGUYEN: And just to clarify, there are folks on the roof as we speak right now in need of rescue. Do you have crews able to get to them?
THIBODEAUX: Yes. We're getting to them. It is going to be slow but we are making all attempts to get to them. Of course as soon as the wind dies down, we will be getting all the state resources in, the coast guard. I have been in communication with the United States Coast Guard. They are coming in as soon as the weather permits. They are going to start flying. We are gearing up for the rescue effort but there are a few in the Bridge City area that we are trying to get to this moment as we speak.
NGUYEN: All right. Judge Thibodeaux joining us live with the latest on the situation down there in Orange County. Obviously a lot of people in need of help, some of them even on their roofs at this hour. We also have Rob Marciano in Galveston, Texas, an area that was hit hard by hurricane Ike. It came ashore, made landfall around 2 a.m. local time. He is going to be joining us next with the situation there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: Now that it's daylight across Texas, we're really getting a good glimpse of the damage caused by hurricane Ike, especially down in Galveston. That is an area that was extremely hard hit by the storm as it came ashore. Our Rob Marciano was there when it did. He spent the night in Galveston. He rode out this storm. A lot of people worried Rob about the folks down there, especially those who decided not to leave. Because at one point, there were warnings that if you don't leave and you live in a single story or two-story home, you face certain death. What did you experience?
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, I experienced a lot of fear when I read that statement driving in here two days ago and had all intentions to leave until we found out the spot we were in, the spot we rode out the storm, probably one of the highest points on the island and in a fortified building. There were a lot of people in that structure. We will show it to you in just a second. But also a structure that is fortified, has been for almost 100 years. It's a seawall. Yesterday at this time we had huge waves banging up against it. Last night, we had monster waves pounding that seawall and flooding the roadway. You can actually see where the storm surge actually came up, right at the entrance to this parking lot. There are pieces of the roadway and pieces of that seawall strewn about. A lot of debris on that road. As a matter of fact, there was a front loader that just came through to pick up some of that. They're going to have to do more than just pick up parts of the Holiday Inn. Check it out. Brick, that's not any sort of veneer stucco. That is real brick, masonry, against the reinforced concrete that was just shredded and peeled off that building last night when the winds turned and the eye passed and they went southwesterly into what turned out to be a wind tunnel. We had to walk through there last night to get to our secondary position and it was a tough go I'll tell you that. Obviously, winds accelerating as we pitched through that area and a lot of damage to that hotel. We see similar damage down the beach.
A little farther to your upper left, you'll see a couple of plain glass windows and sliding glass doors that are blown out. That's certainly a theme that will be echoed throughout Galveston when we finally get out to drive around. Now city officials --- now you are looking at the hotel that we were in which fared pretty well. It's up about 30 feet from the sea level so we weren't too concerned about surge. Obviously, very concerned about wind. At one point, right after the eye passed, they were getting everybody, going door to door in the hotel and evacuating people downstairs. That included firemen that included police officers that included nursing home patients that were evacuated to this facility. And, obviously, the media. Everybody getting downstairs because it was too unstable upstairs and windows were being blown out. We saw some of those firefighters that rode out the storm with us last night. They are now on the road going door to door, checking out individual homes. On stand by are the EMS workers. They will get the call from firefighters if they find anybody in those homes being survivors or otherwise so they can be treated. Also, strike teams are in place to do the unthinkable, and that would be to assess any fatalities and deal with that situation.
As far as the weather situation right now, a lot more tranquil, Betty, than it was this time yesterday and certainly last night. The wind gauges here have been shut down for 12 hours now. But I suspect with the kind of wind damage we have seen, easily 100 miles an hour. One other point, we are going to try to get these pictures for you before this day is done. Down the road I took a walk down Seawall Boulevard, eerily enough where they have the monuments dedicated to the 1900 hurricane that took over 6,000, possibly over 8,000 lives. That monument is in a shambles. The plaque is still in tack but the monument is down and the statue is in shambles. As is that part of the seawall. Generally speaking the seawall did its job Betty and Galveston survives another hurricane.
NGUYEN: Well hopefully the people of Galveston, especially those who decided to ride out the storm survived as well. As you know, Rob, we have been reporting that there is at least three deaths blamed on this storm. Hopefully, that number does not rise. Obviously, we are not going to know until people get out and about in these communities and see who were able to make it out alive. Rob Marciano joining us live from Galveston. Thank you for that report, we will be checking in with you a little bit later today.
Also, we are going to be talking to Jacqui Jeras about the wind damage. Especially here where I'm at, in downtown Houston. You can see behind me the big JP Morgan Chase building. Many of those windows have been blown out and there was a large concern yesterday from officials that maybe as high as 25 percent of the windows in downtown Houston would be blown out because of this storm. We're going to talk to Jacqui about that and get the latest.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: Welcome back to the CNN Saturday morning. We've been keeping an eye on that storm all morning that is hurricane Ike, now a category 1 storm. It came ashore as a category 2 storm around 3:10 this morning on the east coast, 2:10 local time there in Galveston, Texas. It still has top speeds of about 80 miles an hour. We have word now that three deaths have been attributed to this storm, hurricane Ike. One of those being a 10-year-old child who was hit in the head by a tree branch. Thousands of homes and businesses have been destroyed in the wake of this thing. Those homes mostly damaging Texas and Louisiana. The center of the storm has now moved north of Houston. It is expected to move through Texas today and then head on into eastern Arkansas at some point tonight. Our Jacqui Jeras has been keeping us updated and tracking this thing for us. Is it still moving at a pretty good clip? I guess. I have been surprised to hear how fast it is moving and getting out of Houston.
JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, it really picked up forward speed big-time, T.J. It is moving 20 miles per hour up to the north. So that's great news. It means that the hurricane force winds really pulled out of the Houston area a couple hours ago. We could still see some tropical storm force winds. All the weather observations, when the center of the storm blew through here, had been blown out. So the highest gust that we saw was 92 miles per hour. That was from a trained storm spotter in the downtown Houston area near Houston Hobby Airport there. We are guesstimated that the winds are on the order of 20 miles per hour sustained. We could maybe see some gusts well beyond that. When you are talking 90 plus miles per hour winds, that can cause a lot of damage. That's what we are talking about with some of the pictures that you have been seeing coming in are the JP Morgan Chase building. I want to zoom in here and talk a little bit about that. If you tuned in and saw some of our coverage yesterday, it would show you that we were talking about the potential for maybe a quarter of all the buildings in the downtown Houston area to be blown out. What we are getting now from the JP Morgan building is that probably the majority of the windows are at least 50 percent on the lower 30 floors have been blown out. This is not because of the pressure of the storm. This is not because of, you know, the center of the storm, this is because of flying debris. We have heard some pea gravel probably pushed off some of the roofs and blew things and of course you have tree limbs and branches and anything else that's loose out there.
Just to put it in perspective for you, this tower here, about 1,000 feet tall. This is the largest, tallest building in Texas. It's the fifth largest five-sided building in the world. I want to give you a nice perspective here. Talking about elevation. This is our Microsoft virtual earth. I will bring it in here to the tower. When you go up in elevation in the atmosphere, the winds are stronger. That is true in a tropical system as well. When you get to about 30 floors on a building like this, go ahead and add 20 to 30 mile per hour for your sustained winds. That's the equivalent of an additional category on that storm. The higher up you go, sometimes you can see the wind possibly breaking things through. Because most of this has been at the lower levels, we know that that's debris from the surfaces that has been flying through the area and causing all those windows to break out. If you have seen the pictures and taken a look at the conditions there, it is very reminiscent of the tornado that came through Atlanta and blew out a lot of the windows in this area back in March. Keep in mind it has been six months since that time, many of those windows have not been replaced yet. They are specialty windows. So it is going to take a long time before the skyline in Houston looks like it used to. T.J.?
HOLMES: Wow, 50 percent of the windows in that thing blown out. That's amazing to hear. Jacqui, thank you so much and I am going to come down there and play with that wall that screen. JERAS: Isn't it fun? Don't you love it?
HOLMES: It is kind of fun stuff. Yeah, it gives us a good perspective. Yes, it's fun and why not, it certainly helps us tell the story and get a perspective there. Jacqui, we appreciate you. Thank you much. Stay with us. We will continue to follow this storm and its effects. We'll also get word from our national security contributor Fran Townsend about just how the response has been so far what the challenges are going to be going forward. Stay here.
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HOLMES: It's a quarter to noon here at your hurricane headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. It's a quarter to 11:00 in Houston and other parts that have been getting pounded by Hurricane Ike this morning which is our category 1 storm.
Let's turn to our Sean Callebs who I believe is actually on the road once again. There he is. You've been doing a lot of this lately. We saw him doing it during Gustav but you're on the road. Tell me what that road is like. You said a lot of them were flooded. Where are you headed?
SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The roads are pretty bad. We are driving down through here, there is debris everywhere. Everything from palm fawns to -- at one point we saw a gigantic cross arm, the kind you find at a railroad station that had floated across the road. There are a lot of road traffic signs, with the large bolts sticking out. One thing, T.J., I am really surprised at the amount of traffic that we're running into out here. We are going to check this just to make sure we are still connected because I think I just lost something. Everything is still working, T.J., can you hear me where you are?
HOLMES: We see you and we hear you and we see you just fine, Sean. Go right ahead, buddy.
CALLEBS: Ok. We are now heading down. We are trying to get to the shipping channel. Some of those areas where the mandatory evacuation were. We spent some time in a town called La Porte shooting a story ahead of the storm. I think it would be interesting to go back and see that area where all the mandatory evacuations were. I'm surprised with the traffic. I will be honest with you, there are a lot of people out on the road right now and they aren't emergency vehicles. If there is a hint of good news, the punishing rain has really stopped to a large degree. We're seeing hints of blue sky down here. We are only about 25 miles or so from Galveston. Getting out of the city was quite difficult. The roads were either blocked or flooded, debris everywhere. We are trying to get a signal out. We are broadcasting via broadband and because we are in that man-made canyon, if you will, we were unable to get out. We are running into it again. We are trying to get off of this exit ramp and it's flooded. There are about 10 cars in front of us. Some are trying to go through, some are looking around it. We are going to go beyond it. The last thing we want to do is get stuck in this thing in the middle of about a 10-foot swamp. The weather conditions are ok. I wouldn't say they are phenomenal but right now, it appears to be passable. Really, as soon as you get out of the city. Downtown was just a nightmare. It looked like a war zone. I heard you talking about one building with 50 percent of the windows that had been knocked out. It's easy to believe. Those winds were fierce. Another thing that really impresses us, we have driven a long way and it's just been devastation the entire way.
HOLMES: You wanted to go ahead and show me something away from the window. Go ahead, there. Let us get an idea there.
CALLEBS: Away from the window. Ok, if you look out there, this is about as good as we've seen it. I don't know what you can see out there, how well the picture's coming across, but it's -- the skies are ok. The roads are passable. We're going to actually go down just a little bit further and we're now getting back on I-45 south and trying to spin over to some of those areas, but ironically, this is about as good as it's been the entire way down. Here we're seeing low-level flooding, this is what we're seeing cars stopping. You can just see how the swamp, bayou, whatever has blown up here. We think we're going to try and get through this one. This one isn't too bad, but this is basically what the entire way has been like. We've been going between 40, 50 miles an hour, every now and then caught by a gust that's pretty unpleasant, but we are -- to me it's amazing with this technology, considering the degree, the wireless communication has to be adversely affected that we're able to get out of as we are driving around. So that's a big hats off to everybody who has been working on this.
HOLMES: That is amazing to see. It's interesting to be able to take this ride along there with you. Our Sean Callebs, as we know many places have banned people talking on cell phones and driving. Sean because of you they're probably going to ban reporting and driving at some point, you're doing so much of it. That can't be a good idea but you be careful out there on the road. We know you're trying to get to that shipping channel. We'll certainly be checking back in with you when you get to where you're going. You guys be careful on the road.
We want to talk now about the federal response to this hurricane. How has this response been and what is the federal government's road once the hurricane clears out of Texas and we get more of an assessment of this damage. Joining us now to talk about that CNN national security contributor, Fran Townsend, she's the former White House homeland security adviser. Good morning to you, ma'am. Thank you again for being with us. Tell us how do you go about prioritizing what needs to be done? You've got millions without power. You've got people that need to be rescued in some cases, how do federal officials, state officials, local officials figure out what in the world do we go tackle first?
FRAN FRAGOS TOWNSEND, CNN NATL. SECURITY CONTRIBUTOR: The first and most important piece to that is having a unity of command, and that is having emergency response officials, federal, state and local together. That's happening in Texas and that will be the process by which they prioritize the federal response. The next big thing will be search and rescue as soon as weather permits and they have assets pre-positioned. One of the things people were concerned with were the chemical plants and facilities. What you see happen about two weeks ago DHS worked with the chemical plants to move out the hazards materials. Those that couldn't be moved out were put in secure storage, and what will happen next is when weather permits, company officials will come in and assess their facilities and EPA will fly aerial missions to look to see if there have been any spills or releases. So that's all well in hand. The next piece to this is with so many power outages as you reported, T.J., what happens big generators will be at a premium. The kind of big generators that are needed for hospitals and for chemicals and refineries. FEMA's contract is for 54, 34 of those are in the region, the rest are on the way, but when power outages are this pervasive there is never enough and so there are critical decisions to be made about who gets those big generators and when and for how long.
HOLMES: So who would be getting them?
TOWNSEND: Well, what happens is the federal officials while they bring some capability to the table, to the crisis, they don't make those decisions alone. Governor Perry's folks will work with the local officials to find out where is the need most urgent, if you will, where is it in terms of life that's at risk and it will go to those places first, but it will depend on moment to moment making those decisions based on capability and the urgency of the risk.
HOLMES: How can you -- I guess step back and when you watch the response to this storm now in response to Gustav and the federal government's response and certain things you can point to and go, a- ha, we got it right now when we screwed it up in the past and certainly Katrina was one where we learned too many lessons from. Are there obvious things that you look at and you can point out say, aha, we're doing that right now as opposed to then and things that just jump out at you?
TOWNSEND: Sure. One of them is medical evacuations. Planning for those in advance and then having additional capability because inevitably officials will decide at the last minute they've got to evacuate people that they didn't plan on doing. DHS has done that and done it well both in Gustav and in Ike. The other one which we saw in hurricane Rita, for example in Texas was counter flow. Traffic accidents, traffic jams, people dying trying to evacuate. Governor Perry in Texas seemed to get that right this time. They clearly planned with federal officials and local states who had to absorb some of that contra flow and that has gone better and they deserve real credit for that.
HOLMES: Is that cooperation there and coordination that needs to be there, local, state, federal. There's a lot of big government agencies and a lot of red tape. Do we have that part of this equation right now and we're working together and those groups can work seamlessly?
TOWNSEND: You know, T.J., I think we do. I would tell you, I always hesitate. That's one of those pieces that you can never stop working. You have to work it every day before a crisis, during a crisis and after. It requires constant attention, but I will tell you, this is much better than anything we've seen, Ike and Gustav.
HOLMES: All right, our Fran Townsend. We do appreciate you, we're glad we have you and your insight and your expertise to this area. Thank you so much. I'm sure we'll be checking in with you again plenty during this day. Thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, you stay right here with us. We've been with you through the night hours and we will continue on with the coverage of hurricane Ike, now a category 1 but still on the move and still causing problems. Stay here.
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HOLMES: Yes, the hurricane headquarters here at CNN headquarters in Atlanta, but in the middle of the hurricane itself has been our Betty Nguyen. We're wrapping it up here with you this morning. It's been a long and interesting morning for you.
NGUYEN: Oh yes, it has. In fact T.J., I just got a few minutes a while ago to take a look around and get a better eyes view of what the damage is here in downtown Houston and let me tell you, there is quite a bit. You won't believe some of the debris that is scattered all around this city. At the top of the hour we're going to bring that to you. There's all kinds of stuff, even stuff that you wouldn't think would be in the street. So stay tuned for that.
HOLMES: All right. Betty, thank you so much. We'll be talking to you again soon. But again, good to have you with me this morning from there in downtown Houston and with me now, Fredricka Whitfield. I want to hand it off to you for continuing coverage of what's been kind of a messy morning.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: It's been a very messy morning. Good to see you. You all did a great job. It is a huge storm and a huge land mass in which to cover. We've been trying to keep a close watch on all of it as you saw through most of the morning and now we're getting some of the first images coming out of Galveston, Texas. That was the first hit and the hardest hit there in Texas. Just take a look at some of the images we are just now seeing right there. The property damage right there along the coast. A city of 57,000 and we understand right before the storm hit about 40 percent of the residents of Galveston Island decided to stay.
